Contender
03-01-2004, 01:36 PM
Publication:The New York Sun; Date:Mar 1, 2004; Section:Editorial &
Opinion; Page:9
The Folly of Gun Control
By PATRICK W. BROPHY Mr.Brophy is a trial lawyer in New York City. He
serves as a director and general counsel of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc.
Historian Barbara W. Tuchman defined folly as "the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests." In urban America, nothing exemplifies persistent folly like the establishment passion for gun control. Gun control is offensive to the Constitution, offensive to freedom
and offensive to common sense. Because only the law abiding respect such laws, gun control emboldens criminals. Conversely, when criminals do not know who is armed, everyone enjoys greater safety from violent crime.
Law enforcement lives are needlessly risked and lost in the enforcement of gun control. Precious law enforcement funds are wasted by the millions on fancy gun control projects like ballistic imaging of new firearms, with not a single crime prevented or solved. When one regards the communities in
this city where residents are more likely to be both less well off and more suspicious of unnecessary entanglements with law enforcement, and who will be deemed to be criminals as a result, the racially disparate impact of New York City's prohibitively expensive and oppressive gun control scheme is
obvious.
In no other policy area is empirical data so vituperatively rejected in order to uphold a political article of faith. No other set of life-and-death rules so plainly and predictably favors the merciless at the expense of innocents. What is truly astounding is that the innocents of New York City put up with this folly. For over 20 years now, the rest of America has been standing up to establishment gun control elitists and
taking back their rights, while New York City and state, increasingly alone, march in the other direction.
With Ohio's enactment in January of a law mandating the issuance of a license to carry a personal firearm to law-abiding adults, the city and state of New York are among a shrinking minority of American jurisdictions that continue to cling to a victim disarmament policy. Today, 37 states have laws that either mandate the issuance of a carry license to every qualifying adult who applies, or else do not require that a law-abiding adult obtain such a license in order to carry a personal defense firearm.
Three of those states - Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Vermont - border on New York State. Their citizens are freer than New York's and safer. Vermont has no gun control laws at all. No licensing, no registration, no need to worry about folks circumventing senseless and oppressive laws, no lost law enforcement lives on account of such laws, and amazingly little crime. We could learn a lot from Vermont.
Last Tuesday in the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg, together with the mayors of other crime-ridden cities, revealed his dedication to the folly of gun control. In effect, he complained that the rest of America, where laws respect the essentially human right that is the Second Amendment, has an obligation to insulate Gotham from the political and economic disequilibrium that New York's peculiar gun control policies make inevitable. Mr. Bloomberg and others like him are losing their arguments in the courts of public opinion, so they beg to take their arguments to the undemocratic courts of their fellow elitists.
Short of being extremely rich or famous, most New Yorkers will never be granted a carry permit by the NYPD. The police will not accept that you face the same dangers living in the city as do carry permit holders such as actor Robert DeNiro or Steve Tyler of Aerosmith, which is all-the-more remarkable when you realize that Mr.Tyler does not live in New York.With a perfectly clean personal background,a New Yorker will qualify for a pistol to have in her home or business only. God help our average New Yorker if he or she needs that licensed pistol elsewhere. God help average people if they need it soon, because the NYPD will take at least five months and
usually more to give her back even this heavily infringed right. Women have been killed in jurisdictions with shorter waiting periods while waiting for government approval of their self defense right.
Our applicant will pay a $255 fee for a three-year license, unless she applies after Mr. Bloomberg's budget bill goes into effect, since he has called for raising that fee to $340. The applicant will pay that sum, or a higher one, every three years on renewal. The applicant will pay a $99 fee to the state, ostensibly to pay for fingerprint processing. The
applicant will be charged this fee even if the State already has the fingerprints on file from a previous pistol or rifle permit application. The applicant will need to pay for photos and notary fees and need copies of utility bills in his or her own name, because the NYPD won't believe applicants when they say they live where they do. And the applicant will have to find a typewriter to use on the original yellow application, because even a neatly handwritten application will be rejected, and one cannot submit a photocopy from a computer printer.
Our average New Yorker will make no fewer than four visits to police headquarters during the licensing process (including one just to pick up the application, which the NYPD inexplicably will not post on the Internet or mail to you). The application has over 30 questions, some with subparts,
some astonishingly irrelevant, (such as wanting to know if any business partners have a pistol license) and at least one that serves no other function but to trap the applicant. (Hint: When you're asked if you have any other licenses, don't forget your driver's license, or else you can start the process again from the beginning.) The applicant will take a day
off from work for the last visit to bring in the new firearm for a completely unnecessary "inspection" that the department will only conduct during two hours in the middle of the day. The gun will not seriously be inspected, and nothing else will happen at this occasion that could not be done by mail.
Mayor Bloomberg would rather sue law-abiding manufacturers and dealers than act on the knowledge that our city's gun control laws leave good citizens at the mercy of armed criminals. Moreover, he doesn't have a clue that, with its prohibitive fees and abusive bureaucratic requirements, the city's gun control actually creates the market for the undocumented gun dealing of which he complains. The city's gun control regime gives millions an irresistible incentive to obtain their personal security needs in the unregulated marketplace where there are no license fees, no fingerprint
fees, no renewal fees, no four or more trips to downtown Manhattan, no having the neighbors or employers knowing your private business from a government investigator.
Every undocumented firearm is not going to a gang member. The federal government estimates there are 2 million undocumented firearms in New York City, and every year over 99.975% of them are not used to kill anyone. Many are going to poor grandmothers, small shopkeepers and all sorts of other good New Yorkers who have a God-given right to defend themselves and their loved ones without a government permission slip. This is the unsinkable American passion to live, and to live free. One would hope that a self-made billionaire in America would comprehend that.
Opinion; Page:9
The Folly of Gun Control
By PATRICK W. BROPHY Mr.Brophy is a trial lawyer in New York City. He
serves as a director and general counsel of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc.
Historian Barbara W. Tuchman defined folly as "the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests." In urban America, nothing exemplifies persistent folly like the establishment passion for gun control. Gun control is offensive to the Constitution, offensive to freedom
and offensive to common sense. Because only the law abiding respect such laws, gun control emboldens criminals. Conversely, when criminals do not know who is armed, everyone enjoys greater safety from violent crime.
Law enforcement lives are needlessly risked and lost in the enforcement of gun control. Precious law enforcement funds are wasted by the millions on fancy gun control projects like ballistic imaging of new firearms, with not a single crime prevented or solved. When one regards the communities in
this city where residents are more likely to be both less well off and more suspicious of unnecessary entanglements with law enforcement, and who will be deemed to be criminals as a result, the racially disparate impact of New York City's prohibitively expensive and oppressive gun control scheme is
obvious.
In no other policy area is empirical data so vituperatively rejected in order to uphold a political article of faith. No other set of life-and-death rules so plainly and predictably favors the merciless at the expense of innocents. What is truly astounding is that the innocents of New York City put up with this folly. For over 20 years now, the rest of America has been standing up to establishment gun control elitists and
taking back their rights, while New York City and state, increasingly alone, march in the other direction.
With Ohio's enactment in January of a law mandating the issuance of a license to carry a personal firearm to law-abiding adults, the city and state of New York are among a shrinking minority of American jurisdictions that continue to cling to a victim disarmament policy. Today, 37 states have laws that either mandate the issuance of a carry license to every qualifying adult who applies, or else do not require that a law-abiding adult obtain such a license in order to carry a personal defense firearm.
Three of those states - Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Vermont - border on New York State. Their citizens are freer than New York's and safer. Vermont has no gun control laws at all. No licensing, no registration, no need to worry about folks circumventing senseless and oppressive laws, no lost law enforcement lives on account of such laws, and amazingly little crime. We could learn a lot from Vermont.
Last Tuesday in the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg, together with the mayors of other crime-ridden cities, revealed his dedication to the folly of gun control. In effect, he complained that the rest of America, where laws respect the essentially human right that is the Second Amendment, has an obligation to insulate Gotham from the political and economic disequilibrium that New York's peculiar gun control policies make inevitable. Mr. Bloomberg and others like him are losing their arguments in the courts of public opinion, so they beg to take their arguments to the undemocratic courts of their fellow elitists.
Short of being extremely rich or famous, most New Yorkers will never be granted a carry permit by the NYPD. The police will not accept that you face the same dangers living in the city as do carry permit holders such as actor Robert DeNiro or Steve Tyler of Aerosmith, which is all-the-more remarkable when you realize that Mr.Tyler does not live in New York.With a perfectly clean personal background,a New Yorker will qualify for a pistol to have in her home or business only. God help our average New Yorker if he or she needs that licensed pistol elsewhere. God help average people if they need it soon, because the NYPD will take at least five months and
usually more to give her back even this heavily infringed right. Women have been killed in jurisdictions with shorter waiting periods while waiting for government approval of their self defense right.
Our applicant will pay a $255 fee for a three-year license, unless she applies after Mr. Bloomberg's budget bill goes into effect, since he has called for raising that fee to $340. The applicant will pay that sum, or a higher one, every three years on renewal. The applicant will pay a $99 fee to the state, ostensibly to pay for fingerprint processing. The
applicant will be charged this fee even if the State already has the fingerprints on file from a previous pistol or rifle permit application. The applicant will need to pay for photos and notary fees and need copies of utility bills in his or her own name, because the NYPD won't believe applicants when they say they live where they do. And the applicant will have to find a typewriter to use on the original yellow application, because even a neatly handwritten application will be rejected, and one cannot submit a photocopy from a computer printer.
Our average New Yorker will make no fewer than four visits to police headquarters during the licensing process (including one just to pick up the application, which the NYPD inexplicably will not post on the Internet or mail to you). The application has over 30 questions, some with subparts,
some astonishingly irrelevant, (such as wanting to know if any business partners have a pistol license) and at least one that serves no other function but to trap the applicant. (Hint: When you're asked if you have any other licenses, don't forget your driver's license, or else you can start the process again from the beginning.) The applicant will take a day
off from work for the last visit to bring in the new firearm for a completely unnecessary "inspection" that the department will only conduct during two hours in the middle of the day. The gun will not seriously be inspected, and nothing else will happen at this occasion that could not be done by mail.
Mayor Bloomberg would rather sue law-abiding manufacturers and dealers than act on the knowledge that our city's gun control laws leave good citizens at the mercy of armed criminals. Moreover, he doesn't have a clue that, with its prohibitive fees and abusive bureaucratic requirements, the city's gun control actually creates the market for the undocumented gun dealing of which he complains. The city's gun control regime gives millions an irresistible incentive to obtain their personal security needs in the unregulated marketplace where there are no license fees, no fingerprint
fees, no renewal fees, no four or more trips to downtown Manhattan, no having the neighbors or employers knowing your private business from a government investigator.
Every undocumented firearm is not going to a gang member. The federal government estimates there are 2 million undocumented firearms in New York City, and every year over 99.975% of them are not used to kill anyone. Many are going to poor grandmothers, small shopkeepers and all sorts of other good New Yorkers who have a God-given right to defend themselves and their loved ones without a government permission slip. This is the unsinkable American passion to live, and to live free. One would hope that a self-made billionaire in America would comprehend that.